The meat hissed and spluttered in the skillet. “He got drunk three separate times,” Temple said. “Three separate times in one day. Buddy—that’s Hubert, my youngest brother—said that if he ever caught me with a drunk man, he’d beat hell out of me. And now I’m with one that gets drunk three times in one day.” Leaning her hip against the table, her hand crushing the cigarette, she began to laugh. “Dont you think that’s funny?” she said. Then she quit laughing by holding her breath, and she could hear the faint guttering the lamp made, and the meat in the skillet and the hissing of the kettle on the stove, and the voices, the harsh, abrupt, meaningless masculine sounds from the house. “And you have to cook for all of them every night. All those men eating here, the house full of them at night, in the dark.……” She dropped the crushed cigarette. “May I hold the baby? I know how; I’ll hold him good.” She ran to the box, stooping, and lifted the sleeping child. It opened its eyes, whimpering. “Now, now; Temple’s got it.” She rocked it, held high and awkward in her thin arms. “Listen,” she said, looking at the woman’s back, “will you ask him? your husband, I mean. He can get a car and take me somewhere. Will you? Will you ask him?” The child had stopped whimpering. Its lead-colored eyelids showed a thin line of eyeball. “I’m not afraid,” Temple said. “Things like that dont happen. Do they? They’re just like other people. You’re just like other people. With a little baby. And besides, my father’s a ju-judge. The gu-governor comes to our house to e-eat—What a cute little bu-ba-a-by,” she wailed, lifting the child to her face; “if bad mans hurts Temple, us’ll tell the governor’s soldiers, wont us?”
“Like what people?” the woman said, turning the meat. “Do you think Lee hasn’t anything better to do than chase after every one of you cheap little—” She opened the fire door and threw her cigarette in and slammed the door. In nuzzling at the child Temple had pushed her hat onto the back of her head at a precarious dissolute angle above her clotted curls. “Why did you come here?”
“It was Gowan. I begged him. We had already missed the ball game, but I begged him if he’d just get me to Starkville before the special started back, they wouldn’t know I wasn’t on it, because the ones that saw me get off wouldn’t tell. But he wouldn’t. He said we’d stop here just a minute and get some more whiskey and he was already drunk then. He had gotten drunk again since we left Taylor and I’m on probation and Daddy would just die. But he wouldn’t do it. He got drunk again while I was begging him to take me to a town anywhere and let me out.”
“On probation?” the woman said.
“For slipping out at night. Because only town boys can have cars, and when you had a date with a town boy on Friday or Saturday or Sunday, the boys in school wouldn’t have a date with you, because they cant have cars. So I had to slip out. And a girl that didn’t like me told the Dean, because I had a date with a boy she liked and he never asked her for another date. So I had to.”
“If you didn’t slip out, you wouldn’t get to go riding,” the woman said. “Is that it? And now when you slipped out once too often, you’re squealing.”
“Gowan’s not a town boy. He’s from Jefferson. He went to Virginia. He kept on saying how they had taught him to drink like a gentleman, and I begged him just to let me out anywhere and lend me enough money for a ticket because I only had two dollars, but he—”
“Oh, I know your sort,” the woman said. “Honest women. Too good to have anything to do with common people. You’ll slip out at night with the kids, but just let a man come along.” She turned the meat. “Take all you can get, and give nothing. ‘I’m a pure girl; I dont do that’. You’ll slip out with the kids and burn their gasoline and eat their food, but just let a man so much as look at you and you faint away because your father the judge and your four brothers might not like it. But just let you get into a jam, then who do you come crying to? to us, the ones that are not good enough to lace the judge’s almighty shoes.” Across the child Temple gazed at the woman’s back, her face like a small pale mask beneath the precarious hat.
“My brother said he would kill Frank. He didn’t say he would give me a whipping if he caught me with him; he said he would kill the goddam son of a bitch in his yellow buggy and my father cursed my brother and said he could run his family a while longer and he drove me into the house and locked me in and went down to the bridge to wait for Frank. But I wasn’t a coward. I climbed down the gutter and headed Frank off and told him. I begged him to go away, but he said we’d both go. When we got back in the buggy I knew it had been the last time. I knew it, and I begged him again to go away, but he said he’d drive me home to get my suit case and we’d tell father. He wasn’t a coward either. My father was sitting on the porch. He said ‘Get out of that buggy’ and I got out and I begged Frank to go on, but he got out too and we came up the path and father reached around inside the door and got the shotgun. I got in front of Frank and father said ‘Do you want it too?’ and I tried to stay in front but Frank shoved me behind him and held me and father shot him and said ‘Get down there and sup your dirt, you whore’.”
“I have been called that,” Temple whispered, holding the sleeping child in her high thin arms, gazing at the woman’s back.
“But you good women. Cheap sports. Giving nothing, then when you’re caught.…… Do you know what you’ve got into now?” she looked across her shoulder, the fork in her hand. “Do you think you’re meeting kids now? kids that give a damn whether you like it or not? Let me tell you whose house you’ve come into without being asked or wanted; who you’re expecting to drop everything and carry you back where you had no business ever leaving. When he was a soldier in the Philippines he killed another soldier over one of those nigger women and they sent him to Leavenworth. Then the war came and they let him out to go to it. He got two medals, and when it was over they put him back in Leavenworth until the lawyer got a congressman to get him out. Then I could quit jazzing again—”
“Jazzing?” Temple whispered, holding the child, looking herself no more than an elongated and leggy infant in her scant dress and uptilted hat.
“Yes, putty-face!” the woman said. “How do you suppose I paid that lawyer? And that’s the sort of man you think will care that much—” with the fork in her hand she came and snapped her fingers softly and viciously in Temple’s face “—what happens to you. And you, you little doll-faced slut, that think you cant come into a room where a man is without him.……” Beneath the faded garment her breast moved deep and full. With her hands on her hips she looked at Temple with cold, blazing eyes. “Man? You’ve never seen a real man. You dont know what it is to be wanted by a real man. And thank your stars you haven’t and never will, for then you’d find just what that little putty face is worth, and all the rest of it you think you are jealous of when you’re just scared of it. And if he is just man enough to call you whore, you’ll say Yes Yes and you’ll crawl naked in the dirt and the mire for him to call you that.…… Give me that baby.” Temple held the child, gazing at the woman, her mouth moving as if she were saying Yes Yes Yes. The woman threw the fork onto the table. “Turn loose,” she said, lifting the child. It opened its eyes and wailed. The woman drew a chair out and sat down, the child upon her lap. “Will you hand me one of those diapers on the line yonder?” she said. Temple stood in the floor, her lips still moving. “You’re scared to go out there, aren’t you?” the woman said. She rose.
“No,” Temple said; “I’ll get—”
“I’ll get it.” The unlaced brogans scuffed across the kitchen. She returned and drew another chair up to the stove and spread the two remaining cloths and the undergarment on it, and sat again and laid the child across her lap. It wailed. “Hush,” she said, “hush, now,” her face in the lamplight taking a serene, brooding quality. She changed the child and laid it in the box. Then she took a platter down from a cupboard curtained by a split towsack and took up the fork and came and looked into Temple’s face again.
“Listen. If I get a car for yo
u, will you get out of here?” she said. Staring at her Temple moved her mouth as though she were experimenting with words, tasting them. “Will you go out the back and get into it and go away and never come back here?”
“Yes,” Temple whispered, “anywhere. Anything.”
Without seeming to move her cold eyes at all the woman looked Temple up and down. Temple could feel all her muscles shrinking like severed vines in the noon sun. “You poor little gutless fool,” the woman said in her cold undertone. “Playing at it.”
“I didn’t. I didn’t.”
“You’ll have something to tell them now, when you get back. Wont you?” Face to face, their voices were like shadows upon two close blank walls. “Playing at it.”
“Anything. Just so I get away. Anywhere.”
“It’s not Lee I’m afraid of. Do you think he plays the dog after every hot little bitch that comes along? It’s you.”
“Yes. I’ll go anywhere.”
“I know your sort. I’ve seen them. All running, but not too fast. Not so fast you cant tell a real man when you see him. Do you think you’ve got the only one in the world?”
“Gowan,” Temple whispered, “Gowan.”
“I have slaved for that man,” the woman whispered, her lips scarce moving, in her still, dispassionate voice. It was as though she were reciting a formula for bread. “I worked night shift as a waitress so I could see him Sundays at the prison. I lived two years in a single room, cooking over a gas-jet, because I promised him. I lied to him and made money to get him out of prison, and when I told him how I made it, he beat me. And now you must come here where you’re not wanted. Nobody asked you to come here. Nobody cares whether you are afraid or not. Afraid? You haven’t the guts to be really afraid, anymore than you have to be in love.”
“I’ll pay you,” Temple whispered. “Anything you say. My father will give it to me.” The woman watched her, her face motionless, as rigid as when she had been speaking. “I’ll send you clothes. I have a new fur coat. I just wore it since Christmas. It’s as good as new.”
The woman laughed. Her mouth laughed, with no sound, no movement of her face. “Clothes? I had three fur coats once. I gave one of them to a woman in an alley by a saloon. Clothes? God.” She turned suddenly. “I’ll get a car. You get away from here and dont you ever come back. Do you hear?”
“Yes,” Temple whispered. Motionless, pale, like a sleepwalker she watched the woman transfer the meat to the platter and pour the gravy over it. From the oven she took a pan of biscuits and put them on a plate. “Can I help you?” Temple whispered. The woman said nothing. She took up the two plates and went out. Temple went to the table and took a cigarette from the pack and stood staring stupidly at the lamp. One side of the chimney was blackened. Across it a crack ran in a thin silver curve. The lamp was of tin, coated about the neck with dirty grease. She lit hers at the lamp, someway, Temple thought, holding the cigarette in her hand, staring at the uneven flame. The woman returned. She caught up the corner of her skirt and lifted the smutty coffee-pot from the stove.
“Can I take that?” Temple said.
“No. Come on and get your supper.” She went out.
Temple stood at the table, the cigarette in her hand. The shadow of the stove fell upon the box where the child lay. Upon the lumpy wad of bedding it could be distinguished only by a series of pale shadows in soft small curves, and she went and stood over the box and looked down at its putty-colored face and bluish eyelids. A thin whisper of shadow cupped its head and lay moist upon its brow; one thin arm, upflung, lay curl-palmed beside its cheek. Temple stooped above the box.
“He’s going to die,” Temple whispered. Bending, her shadow loomed high upon the wall, her coat shapeless, her hat tilted monstrously above a monstrous escaping of hair. “Poor little baby,” she whispered, “poor little baby.” The men’s voices grew louder. She heard a trampling of feet in the hall, a rasping of chairs, the voice of the man who had laughed above them, laughing again. She turned, motionless again, watching the door. The woman entered.
“Go and eat your supper,” she said.
“The car,” Temple said. “I could go now, while they’re eating.”
“What car?” the woman said. “Go on and eat. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”
“I’m not hungry. I haven’t eaten today. I’m not hungry at all.”
“Go and eat your supper,” she said.
“I’ll wait and eat when you do.”
“Go on and eat your supper. I’ve got to get done here some time tonight.”
8
Temple entered the dining-room from the kitchen, her face fixed in a cringing, placative expression; she was quite blind when she entered, holding her coat about her, her hat thrust upward and back at that dissolute angle. After a moment she saw Tommy. She went straight toward him, as if she had been looking for him all the while. Something intervened: a hard forearm; she attempted to evade it, looking at Tommy.
“Here,” Gowan said across the table, his chair rasping back, “you come around here.”
“Outside, brother,” the one who had stopped her said, whom she recognised then as the one who had laughed so often; “you’re drunk. Come here, kid.” His hard forearm came across her middle. She thrust against it, grinning rigidly at Tommy. “Move down, Tommy,” the man said. “Aint you got no manners, you mat-faced bastard?” Tommy guffawed, scraping his chair along the floor. The man drew her toward him by the wrist. Across the table Gowan stood up, propping himself on the table. She began to resist, grinning at Tommy, picking at the man’s fingers.
“Quit that, Van,” Goodwin said.
“Right on my lap here,” Van said.
“Let her go,” Goodwin said.
“Who’ll make me?” Van said. “Who’s big enough?”
“Let her go,” Goodwin said. Then she was free. She began to back slowly away. Behind her the woman, entering with a dish, stepped aside. Still smiling her aching, rigid grimace Temple backed from the room. In the hall she whirled and ran. She ran right off the porch, into the weeds, and sped on. She ran to the road and down it for fifty yards in the darkness, then without a break she whirled and ran back to the house and sprang onto the porch and crouched against the door just as someone came up the hall. It was Tommy.
“Oh, hyer you are,” he said. He thrust something awkwardly at her. “Hyer,” he said.
“What is it?” she whispered.
“Little bite of victuals. I bet you aint et since mawnin.”
“No. Not then, even,” she whispered.
“You eat a little mite and you’ll feel better,” he said, poking the plate at her. “You set down hyer and eat a little bite wher wont nobody bother you. Durn them fellers.”
Temple leaned around the door, past his dim shape, her face wan as a small ghost in the refracted light from the dining-room. “Mrs—Mrs.……” she whispered.
“She’s in the kitchen. Want me to go back there with you?” In the dining-room a chair scraped. Between blinks Tommy saw Temple in the path, her body slender and motionless for a moment as though waiting for some laggard part to catch up. Then she was gone like a shadow around the corner of the house. He stood in the door, the plate of food in his hand. Then he turned his head and looked down the hall just in time to see her flit across the darkness toward the kitchen. “Durn them fellers.”
He was standing there when the others returned to the porch.
“He’s got a plate of grub,” Van said. “He’s trying to get his with a plate full of ham.”
“Git my whut?” Tommy said.
“Look here,” Gowan said.
Van struck the plate from Tommy’s hand. He turned to Gowan. “Dont you like it?”
“No,” Gowan said, “I dont.”
“What are you going to do about it?” Van said.
“Van,” Goodwin said.
“Do you think you’re big enough to not like it?” Van said.
“I am,” Goodwin said.
&nb
sp; When Van went back to the kitchen Tommy followed him. He stopped at the door and heard Van in the kitchen.
“Come for a walk, little bit,” Van said.
“Get out of here, Van,” the woman said.
“Come for a little walk,” Van said. “I’m a good guy. Ruby’ll tell you.”
“Get out of here, now,” the woman said. “Do you want me to call Lee?” Van stood against the light, in a khaki shirt and breeches, a cigarette behind his ear against the smooth sweep of his blond hair. Beyond him Temple stood behind the chair in which the woman sat at the table, her mouth open a little, her eyes quite black.
When Tommy went back to the porch with the jug he said to Goodwin: “Why dont them fellers quit pesterin that gal?”
“Who’s pestering her?”
“Van is. She’s skeered. Whyn’t they leave her be?”
“It’s none of your business. You keep out of it. You hear?”
“Them fellers ought to quit pesterin her,” Tommy said. He squatted against the wall. They were drinking, passing the jug back and forth, talking. With the top of his mind he listened to them, to Van’s gross and stupid tales of city life, with rapt interest, guffawing now and then, drinking in his turn. Van and Gowan were doing the talking, and Tommy listened to them. “Them two’s fixin to have hit out with one another,” he whispered to Goodwin in a chair beside him. “Hyear em?” They were talking quite loud; Goodwin moved swiftly and lightly from his chair, his feet striking the floor with light thuds; Tommy saw Van standing and Gowan holding himself erect by the back of his chair.